Geriatrics

The situation is that I am working as a volunteer in a nursing home in my home town. I do enjoy doing such work. Ad a result I now decide to pursue my career in geriatric care. However there are some disturbing developments in this area in my home area. Some of the residents of this home are being neglected. It is clear that there is no abuse of the residents; however the service delivery is poor in that the needs of the residents are not urgently met when needed. Assistance to those in need is given after some time after request. Some people who need medical care are ignored by the staff. Geriatrics
I need to explain what geriatric care is all about. It is about the caring of the elderly people in the society. Many elderly people are faced with many various problems. Therefore they need care. Some problems which the elderly people may face include the following:
• They may have illnesses of various natures
• They may have problems that arise from side effects of medication they get
• They may feel isolated and neglected
• They may have problems related to the loss of memory
• They may be living in squalid conditions
• Some may have difficulties in walking and may have problems of falling
• Some might have disabilities that come up due to age
• Some may have some dysfunctional systems
• Mental disabilities are also a problem
• Some have problems in driving their cars
• Some have long standing bills.
Therefore geriatrics is concerned about looking after the old people in terms of problems such as those stated above. It also deals with looking at the living conditions of these elderly people. Some of these people may have dependents that need caring, yet some do not have any one to look after. What happens therefore in many countries and societies is that there homes that are built were the aged…...

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Source: Client, seems reliable
Marital status: Widower
Religion: Catholic
Occupation: House wife
Formal education: High school
Primary language: English, written and spoken
Secondary: None
Reason for Seeking Care: Shortness of breath and productive cough.
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4) I believe that caring for the elderly is one of the most challenging and exciting areas of health care.
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Updates in Therapeutics: The Pharmacotherapy Preparatory Review and Recertification Course
31
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The following case pertains to questions 2 and 3.
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...color, odor, and clarity. (Moore, Z. (2014). After gathering the complete, factual, and accurate data, the team leader will then begin to document all data collected about the patients wound health. The assessment information is then used to form a hypothesis about the wound, which is also known as the Nursing Diagnosis.
When researching I read several journals other than journals about wound care and the approach for nursing care was the same, just specialties were different. In wound care there are a lot of health professionals to help oversee and manage wounds. Although everything else in nursing care is very important I learned that communication is one of the most important techniques when providing care to clients. Learning that in geriatrics it is not always the care giver fault that a patient might encounter skin breakdown, and that it sometime occur because in older people their elasticity of their skin change and become more delicate.
...

...A comprehensive assessment of the geriatric patient is very important for many reasons and the first being a baseline if nothing else. Today when we use the term geriatric or elderly this does not mean that this person is in a wheelchair or walking with a walker, it is in regards to where they are in their lifespan. Therefore a comprehensive assessment for one may be totally different for another. The healthcare provider needs to keep in mind that this could make the geriatric patient have feelings of hopelessness and helplessness.
Comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) should being with collecting a health history by interviewing the patient and their family members if needed. The healthcare provider wants to promote an efficient exchange of information and build a rapport with the patient and family. The healthcare provider needs to speak clearly and minimize distractions, give a brief overview of what you will be doing (Lynder, 2011). The CGA can also be done with an interdisciplinary team (Hirth, 2003). The healthcare providers are looking for current and past medical history. A list of current prescription and non-prescription medications are to be recorded.
Next we can move to the physical examination, head-to-toe assessment. The healthcare provider would start by assessing:
* The skin, looking for moles that are dark or irregular in size, bruising and elasticity of the skin. Checking for pressure ulcers or sores that are not healing properly (Lynder, 2011).
...

...Jessica Rose December 13, 2015
Student ID# 277419 XTT Task 1
BSN to MSN
A Currently in my facility, we do not have a policy regarding geriatric and/or demented patients and pain control. I believe this needs to be changed because although we have an initial assessment protocol, we do not have any kind of protocol to control a geriatric or demented patients pain. Since demented patients are quite often left unable to communicate their feelings, I believe there would be, less adverse effects and better patient outcomes for this group of people and better satisfaction with their families.
B There are many people associated with proposing the change within the facility. First would be to go through the assistant nurse manager and nurse manager who would then bring the proposal to the nursing and medical directors for the ER. The ANM and NM would have to decide whether the proposed change would be beneficial for the patients and their outcomes and do further research which they would then propose to the directors. From there, they would decide whether the research was sufficient enough to implement a change.
C
Full APA citation for at least 5 sources | Evidence Strength (1-7) and Evidence Hierarchy |
1. H., Bell, J., Karttunen, N. M., Nykänen, I. A., M., & Hartikainen, S. A. (2013). Analgesic Use and Frailty among Community-Dwelling Older People. Drugs & Aging, 30(2), 129-136. doi:10.1007/s40266-012-0046-8 | 2 and......

...Falls are very common in the geriatric population. They are the leading cause of injury and death by injury in adults over the age of 65 years (Lee, 2013, p.37). Falls can have devastating results in the geriatric population. Fear of falling is a defined geriatric syndrome that may contribute to further functional decline in an already frail patient. When people experience something unpleasant, their natural response is an aversion to that experience. People may begin to limit their activities after a fall or as they become weaker and less agile with increasing age. This leads to a more sedentary lifestyle and physical atrophy, which further predisposes them to falls (Lee, 2013, p.37).
According to Al-Aama (2011):
A fall is a complex multifactorial phenomenon. In order to understand the mechanism of falls, it is essential to understand the prerequisites of normal gait. Essential substrates for a normal gait include fine neural networks such as the cortical–basal ganglia loop and the basal ganglia–brainstem system, exquisite musculoskeletal structures with appropriately regulated muscle tone, and proper processing of sensory information (p. 772).
A fall in the geriatric population could be the result of various long-term or short-term factors. A short-term factor could include an acute illness or an adverse drug reaction. Normal gait and balance requires freely moving joints; muscles contracting at the right time with the appropriate strength; and accurate visual,......

...not always been the case, as late as 1930, America’s older population numbered less than 7 million, only 5.4% of the population. Today, one out of every 9 Americans is “old,” another former youth turns 50 every 8 seconds. Those age 65 and older now exceed 35 million, a number poised to explode. January 2011 ushered in the first of approximately 77 million Baby Boomers; both from 1946 through 1964 are surging toward the retirement.
Another challenge that policymakers and healthcare providers will face is the medical training that one needs to have to handle geriatric patients. There are not enough medical doctors that specialize in geriatric patient nor is there enough talent. Harvard Medical School did not require basic training in geriatrics for all medical school students until just two years ago. In many other countries, geriatric training is barely provided. There is also a financial decrease in treating geriatric patients. Radiographer earns an average of $400,000 per year in the United States and geriatricians make about $150,000 which is less than half. Financial issues also play a big role with the older patients. Many of the elderly patients are on a fixed income which means that after spending 35 percent of the income on healthcare they don’t have enough money to spend on the cost of living.
Wellness Programs
Older Americans are largely affected by chronic diseases and conditions, such as arthritis, diabetes and heart disease, as well as by disabilities that......

...Rybarczyk, B., Lopez, M., Benson, R., Alsten, C., & Stepanski, E. (2002). Efficacy of two behavioural treatment programs for comorbid geriatric insomnia. Psychology and Aging, 17(2), 288-298.
Rybarczyk et al. (2002) found that the literature addressing geriatric insomnia provides evidence of the efficacy of several behavioural treatments, but that most research with this population has excluded those with comorbid medical illness. Thirty-eight geriatric patients with comorbid insomnia and medical illness participated in this randomised controlled trial, which allocated them to either cognitive-behavioural treatment (CBT), home-based audio relaxation treatment (HART), or delayed-treatment control conditions using stratified random allocation.
Seven self-rate or self-report and one actigraphy measures assessed between- and within-group differences at pre-treatment, post-treatment, and 4-month follow-up. The CBT included weekly group sessions with behavioural and cognitive components, relaxation training, and sleep hygiene education. The HART participants received audiotape recordings with four relaxation and sleep-training programmes and a guidebook with behavioural components. Control participants completed the same interval assessments as the treatment groups and were offered HART at the end of 6 months.
The study found differential improvement between the CBT and control groups at post-treatment and follow-up on five of seven sleep measures and a clinically......